The victims of the Elphinstone Road stampede must now set aside their grief to undertake the painful process of claiming compensation.

Of the 23 dead, families of 17 have filed their claims. From among the injured, 21 have filed for compensation.

Nilesh Sawant, 32, a software engineer has been commuting by local trains for close to 20 years now. But never before had a train pass figured in his life as centrally as it did just months after he escaped certain death in the Elphinstone Road footover-bridge stampede on September 29 last year.

Sawant, whose body goes numb if he remains seated for more than an hour and is under treatment for the same, was told he would not be able to claim Rs 5 lakh compensation for his injuries if he did not produce the season ticket – one of the several documents required to prove the authenticity of his claim. “I was caught in that stampede for close to half-an-hour, squished from all sides, barely managing to breathe, unable to move even a finger. I lost consciousness eventually. When I came to, I was in KEM hospital and could not feel one side of my body. Through all this, they expect me to have kept my season ticket safe,” he said.\

Sawant’s friends and family looked for his wallet, which contained the pass, in a heap of belongings of the stampede victims at the Dadar police station. They also rummaged through a similar pile at KEM hospital, where most of the victims were treated but did not find it. He was advised to file an FIR for the lost pass and submit its copy as evidence. He did not bother to do that and submitted instead a copy of his new pass issued in October. He hopes the Railway Tribunal will accept it. He badly needs the Rs 5 lakh compensation to put his life back on track.

Twenty-three people died in the Elphinstone Road stampede and over 30 were injured on on September 29 last year. Those devastated by the tragedy continue to relive it every day as they try to rebuild their lives from scratch. Some have lost the sole earning member of their family and others have had to give up their jobs because of injuries. Their compensation claims – which will be in addition to the ex-gratia announced by the railways (Rs 5 lakh for the families of the dead, Rs 1 lakh for the greviously injured and Rs 50,000 for those with ‘simple’ injuries) – are their last hope.

Retd Justice K Kanan, chairman, Railways Claims Tribunal, began the claims process earlier this month. Of the 23 dead, families of 17 have filed their claims. From among the injured, 21 have filed for compensation – four for grievous injuries, and 17 for ‘simple injuries.’

The process is long. Of the 38 claims (dead plus injured), the tribunal had sent 29 to the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM), seeking his opinion. The opinion was sent back to the Tribunal only on Monday.

Retd Justice Kanan will now decide the admissibility of each case on the basis of the DRM’s comments. This will be followed by hearings for each case, which could take anything between a month and six months. The first hearing is likely to take place on March 13.

Meena Walhekar, 35, a resident of Ulhasnagar, was on her way to her office when the tragedy struck. The only earning member of her family comprising her mother and two brothers, she had recently earned a promotion.

The little raise that the promotion brought had spurred Walhekar to take a loan to renovate their house. The family has no idea how it is going to repay the loan now. And the loan is not the Walhekars’ only worry. Meena used to pay for her younger brother’s education too. He is a Class XII student of commerce. His elder brother is jobless. Their other sister is married and is not in a position to help them financially. The younger brother completing his studies and bagging a job to supplement her earnings was Meena’s dream. A part of the compensation will be used to make sure this dream does not die.

The railways have offered a lawyer to each of the victims or their families. But then a lot of them have also been approached by other lawyers, “guaranteeing” a successful claim for a 10 per cent cut. Compensation claim is not an easy process. Perhaps that is the reason why nearly half the victims have not bothered and have remained satisfied with the ex-gratia.The difficult part is this – despite every victim, dead or injured, having been documented by the railways for the ex-gratia and despite their names being in both police and hospital records, each one of them or their families, will have to prove all over again that their lives were turned upside down because of the stampede.

They will have to prove that they were there on the Elphinstone Road foot-overbridge when the stampede occurred. In the case of those injured, documents will have to be produced to demonstrate also the extent of their injuries and how they have impaired their lives. Proof of the cost of treatment will also have to made available.

This is where ‘10 per cent-cut’ lawyers come into play. They know what documents would be required and where to get them from. They also know what would be required to be done at what stage of the trial.

Rohit Parab, 11, a student of Class VIII, and his brother Aakash Parab, 18, were on their way to help their father, who is a flower vendor, when they got caught in the stampede. Aakash still gets nightmares where he can see his little brother gasping for breath but he is not able to help him.

While Rohit died in the stampede, Aakash snapped his right thigh bone. Aakash has never been to his college. He is bedridden and cannot walk. The family, with a meagre income from Aakash’s father’s flower vending business, has moved from their house in a chawl in Vikhroli to an apartment in Kanjurmarg for which they pay Rs 9,000 a month. The reason for the moving residence was Aakash’s injury. The Vikhroli chawl had a common toilet on the ground floor and it was impossible for Aakash to take the stairs every time he had to use the loo. Their rented apartment has an attached toilet and bath. Also because of Aakash’s injury, his mother has substantially cut down on her work as a house help. The rented apartment, Aakash’s treatment, and his mother’s inability to take up more work has put tremendous pressure on the family’s finances. And then, there is Aakash’s college too.

Jyotiba Chavvan, 28, who died in the stampede, had a daily-wage job in a private firm. Married with a three-year-old daughter and an infant son, his death was such a shock for the family that both his mother and wife have been ailing since. Two of his friends are organising the papers and doing the rounds of the railway officials for the compensation claim.

Mushtaq Mohammed, 40, a zari worker, and a resident of Mumbra, is survived by his wife Ruby Khatun, and five children. The eldest of them is 14. Khatun, who is unlettered, has been running the household with the ex-gratia payment so far. But that money will soon run out.

The death of Vijay Bahadur, 42, a resident of Airoli in Navi Mumbai, left his wife Sarita Devi with no option but to return to her hometown in Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh with her three daughters and a son. Sarita Devi’s brother will remain present for the tribunal’s hearings.

All these people will spend a substantial part of their lives for the next six months or so at a crumbling, old building on P D’Mello Road in the CSMT premises as the hearings start. What happens during these six months will decide to what extent they will be able to recover from just one mistake they or one of their loved ones made that afternoon last September – being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

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